I have always felt a kinship with Drew Barrymore. She and I are exactly 6 months apart in age and with how early she stepped into the public eye, I feel as though we sort of grew up together. It was like she made the mistakes (looking at you here, Tom Green), so that I didn’t have to. So when she posted a photo of herself using a Hanacure mask on Instagram and commented that it immediately took 10 years off of her appearance, I yelled, “Take my money!” to nobody in particular, though it turns out the mask can only be purchased directly through the company’s site at this time. The options are either a Starter Set ($29), which is one application, or The All-In-One-Facial set ($110), which is 4 applications. I ordered the set of 4 because I figured that if one application took 10 years off the face of a lady who was smoking cigs at Studio 51 when she was 8, four applications could literally give me the supple skin of a naked mole rat who had exited its mother’s body and *immediately* slathered itself in cocoa butter while also, possessing truly impressive forethought for such a young and visually impaired animal, slapped on a sunhat for future protection.

I placed my order on June 4th and the shipment notification email and the actual shipment itself arrived today, July 7th. Is it actually backordered? Hell if I know. It could be a hype-building tactic like when Ello was by invite only (take heed, Hanacure peeps. that shit did not take off).

Anyway, on to the actual product review:

I am a 41-year-old woman with a few skin challenges. I have rosacea which is primarily focused on my nose and is worsened by sun, stress, alcohol, spicy foods, caffeine, dehydration, exhaustion, hormonal shifts, changes in season and temperature, wind, being annoyed at people for being dumb all aspects of my life. I also have sun spots, adult acne and generally uneven skin tone.

Annnnnd here I am with a freshly-scrubbed face and a rosacea flareup, alllllllll ready to get youthful af

Here is how this goes:

You will crack open the Lifting Serum and mix it carefully with the Gelling Solution before painting it onto your face with the little brush that is included. DISCLAIMER: Handling that lilliputian Lifting Serum bottle will make you feel as though you are about to do something illegal, or at least immoral. This was an added bonus to me, but to each his or her own.

The feeling will be immediately cool and refreshing, like aloe vera on a sunburn, and you will park your ass on the couch to wait the required 30 minutes. Don’t get too comfortable.

You will tell your kids that you can’t move your face for awhile, to which your 11-year-old will reply, “Um… okay?” whilst barely looking up from their iPad. Your 5-year-old will look concerned for you, but there will be no time to explain. Because as you fan yourself, as per Hanacure’s instructions, things will start getting tight. REAL t i g h t.

This is the part of the process where you think, “Oh, I’m thirsty. I wonder if I can drink.” Well, you can if you have some stolen Starbucks straws in your kitchen drawer from that time when your toddler was obsessed with straws and you thought, “With how much I’m paying these bitches, they’re gonna care if I steal a few straws? Try me, Howard Schultz. TRY. ME.” It still won’t go well and you will dribble water on your shirt. But who has time to worry about that, when you suddenly realize that you maybe were not supposed to paint the Hanacure quite.so.close.to.your.fucking.eye and it will actually begin pulling your lower eyelid open. You will not feel pretty. And then your children will ask you to make them popcorn… As the tiny dried corn particles begin flying out of your air popper, you will realize that your eyeball, which is pulled open like that of a GW Bush-era Gitmo prisoner who is not giving up the goods, is entirely prone and you have no ability to blink. You will put on some protective eyewear and you will finish up that popcorn process, as you complete your metamorphosis into an actual monster.

Your lower lip has now hitched a ride with your eyelid and is fully prone. You will remember when you were a pouty kid and old people would tell you that you should tuck that lip back in lest a bird should land on it. You will still not be amused by those old people and their creepy warnings.

But then you rinse!

Your initial reaction will be that you are way more red than you were before but that the rest of your skin is sort of blending in with the rosacea patches and you’ll think, “Well, okay then! I think…” That’s when the newfound freedom of facial movement will get the better of you and you’ll start making a series of ridiculous expressions that you really wouldn’t have made during the 30-minute mask process but that you missed having the ability to have made had the impulse arisen. You’ll start acting a fool like Shia Lebeouf in that video that made Sia apologize to the whole world. You will hopefully not be wearing dirty looking drawers and wrestling around with anyone from the cast of ‘Dance Moms’.*

*I was not

You’ll take a pretty good look at your face and wonder if one of the transformative effects was supposed to be the sudden amplification of the scar on your nose from that time you tried to re-pierce it with a safety pin in or around 1996, and your skin will be pretty burny.

But you maybe look younger? Like a day or two? Few hours? Somethin?

Then you’ll pivot like 45 degrees and vow never to leave the safety of More Flattering Selfie Lighting ever again. Not for anyone. Not even you, Drew Barrymore.

Update:

Concerned Citizens! I’m still alive. This is this morning when I woke up (pillow lines and rad hair and all). Less redness, maybe some extra puffiness, and I think the lines on my forehead are smoother. Plus, I sort of look like I’m in a boy band, which is probably a bonus. Shall we ride this Hanacure train until it derails? Probably.

By now you certainly are all well aware of the fact that Disney, in conjunction with Adele Dazeem Idina Menzel and the entire winter season, are conspiring to make your children gay. Most people are choosing to focus on the potentially-gay shopkeeper and the lyrics of the movie’s theme song, “Let it Go,” which could definitely be about accepting your identity as an Ice Queenfarting coming out of the closet. Deciding that those were a smoke screen for something far more insidious, I decided to take a closer look. And let me tell you, when you are on a mission to find something that could possibly be perceived as gay, you just might find something that could possibly be perceived as gay. I would like to report my findings here. Shall we start at the beginning? Okay, yes. Let’s.

1. The hetero parents are killed off within the first 10 minutes of the movie, leaving the impressionable daughters to fend off all of The Gayness by themselves. In Europe. Touché, Gay Agenda. Touché.

2. Everybody is focusing on “Let it Go,” but what of “For the First Time in Forever”?

5. Take the word ‘lesbian’ and unscramble it. What words do you see there? I, because I am looking long and hard for these things, see ‘Elsa.’ I see ‘bi.’ I also see ‘An,’ which is maybe what Elsa calls Anna for short. Maybe? Or probably? Let’s go with probably.

Now, this list is not complete. I’ve only seen the movie 3 times. Once it is out on DVD, I plan to watch it daily until I have found every dirty, little gay trick that Disney has managed to sneak into this movie. I will not rest until there is not a single child out there who can enjoy this movie for what Disney claims that it is: a fun musical about strong sisters who love each other unconditionally. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and find a suitable movie for my little, hetero darlings. Hopefully something with the usual violence and misogyny that we, as the moral compasses of this country, have an obligation to force-feed our children. Try as they might, The Gays will not distract me from this mission. The moral sanctity of future generations depends upon it.

I have doctored uncovered evidence that Disney’s plot began in the mid-1990s. Sneaky bastards.

“Consider the bounty of your dead. All the people you have lost in your life have taught you what value is. They taught you how rare it is to breathe, how unbearably beautiful and sacred it is to feel an ache in the center of your heart.” -Augusten Burroughs

The ones who quickly change the station when Billy Joel’s Scenes From an Italian Restaurant comes on, and the ones who give their fingers a quick stretch, in anticipation of pounding out some Steering Wheel Air Piano during the ‘Brender and Eddie’ portion of the song.

One should always strive to be the second type, and one should always strive to avoid the first type. Nobody is too cool for Air Piano and you are certainly no exception.

Spring has sprung in the Portland area. Birds are chirping, flowers are blooming, inexplicably pale people are sneezing and the “summer music” is back. It’s inescapable: blaring from the grocery store sound system, oozing from the speakers at the coffee shops and blasting from the radios of neighboring cars at stoplights, and, finally, making its final descent, back into the part of my brain where really bad music lives during the off-season (May-early September). Sheryl Crow, Bob Marley, Steve Miller, that Canadian who wants to ride a highway, all night long… Somebody, at some point, while high on something, decided that this would be the soundtrack of the American summer. I, for one, would like to say that I think a revote is in order. Hell, maybe even a revolt.

Here’s the trouble:

1. Sheryl Crow: In a word, she is whiny. By all means, soak up the sun. But please stop singing. Lance pedaled away from the whining, and so will I. (note to self: learn to ride bike)

2. Bob Marley: Been there, smoked that, hung a rug on the wall and pretended it was art, and now I’m a grown-up. Goodbye, Bob. Thanks for the memories (of needing to explain to one of your fans, yet again, that you did not die of “toe cancer.”)

3. Steve Miller: “I bought you a crate of papayas, they waited all night by your door.” Papayas are disgusting. Any friend of papaya is no friend of mine.

4. The Canadian who wants to ride a highway, all night long: no explanation needed

So, what do I actually want to listen to during The Warm Months? I’m not telling you. I’m weird like that when it comes to music everything.

Do you ever find yourself in a public place, daydreaming about past disappointments and garlic bread, when suddenly a person appears before you where once there was none, your heart skips a beat, and you are certain that you are about to die? Yeah, me too. Often. Too often. And this experience is not relegated to dark alleys and public transportation terminals. In fact, I haven’t been in a dark alley or a public transportation terminal since the early 1990s. I’m talking about the grocery store. I’m talking about the library. I’m talking about the cheap burrito joint. Why are these predators after me, you ask? Who are these blood-hungry pillagers, hell-bent on slaying me where I stand? Well, I’ll tell you. They are demons in the most clever of disguises. They are children. Children whose parents lost their goddamned minds and bought them wheeled shoes.

The skull and crossbones really speak volumes…

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I feel that putting children in wheeled shoes should be considered an act of domestic terrorism and that the Department of Homeland Security should hand these parents their asses on a plate. And then confiscate the wheeled shoes, gather the villagers, and burn the shoes in a huge bonfire in the town square. Drinks and light appetizers should be served, but we can work out the details later.

The thing is, I like to keep tabs on all humans who are within my immediate area. I assess their ability to kill me, based upon a patent-pending formula of size, proximity, age and perceived physical limitations. Wheeled shoes fuck up my whole formula. Kids are quick. Kids are impulsive. Kids have never heard of “personal space.” Do we really need to up their already extraordinarily high chances of breaking the hips of the elderly? I say, let’s not. I say, let’s work together on this societal scourge that is wheeled shoes.

Parents of wheel-footed children, I have a proposal for you. You keep your horrifying precious sociopaths offspring in non-wheeled shoes when they are indoors, and I double dog swear that I will stop sending my kids to the library with nunchucks and throwing stars. Deal?